Institutional DeFi is moving from experimentation to execution, as regulatory clarity, economic pressure, and maturing infrastructure reshape how capital markets operate.
Our eBook, Institutional decentralised finance at an inflection point, examines how on-chain finance is evolving into a viable operating model for institutional markets. Developed in partnership with Aave Labs, it explores how tokenisation, stablecoins, and decentralised liquidity are converging with institutional servicing, compliance, and governance to address long-standing inefficiencies in settlement, liquidity management, and capital deployment.
Inside the guide
- Why post-trade processes account for up to 30% to 40% of transaction costs in some asset classes
- How atomic settlement compresses settlement cycles from days to seconds
- How collateral mobility shifts redemption-driven to collateral-driven liquidity management
- What an institutional‑grade, compliant DeFi stack looks like
- A checklist for institutions adopting institutional DeFi
Why institutional DeFi matters now
The analysis shows that capital markets are reaching the limits of legacy operating models built around fragmented ledgers, delayed settlement, and manual reconciliation. As pressure mounts to improve capital efficiency and reduce operational drag, institutions are increasingly looking to on-chain architectures that embed compliance, enable real-time settlement, and make assets productive through collateral mobility. Institutional DeFi is no longer theoretical; it is becoming an execution question.
